Dipped in dark chocolate

“As I grew up I notice my skin becoming darker and my eyes opened to a world of negative social stigma of black dark-skinned women”

My personal experiences and research into slavery, documentaries, media and reviews on black dark-skinned women are portrayed into a protagonist called Layla, a young dark-skinned model who becomes self-conscious about her appearance. Losing touch with reality and being constantly told she is not living up the media’s own standards of beauty.View table of contents...

Chapters:

Take me back to the roots of
despair; take me back to the time where colourism became uprooted
and drilled into the mind until this day.

The sun scorches my skin as I
continue with my daily routine of working outside the plantation
in the mist of the green fields picking cotton, hanging laundry
and growing the crops. Feeling like nobody witnessing this
division among the black community losing the voice deep within.
The voice buried into the depth of my soul the voice wanting to
scream out to the world

Stop this
colourism!

Stop this favouring in
lighter skin women!

Am tired of the black man's
light skinned fixation!

My eyes gazing through the window
at this woman with a skin complexion closer to white working
inside the plantation cooking and washing the master's clothes
watching her being worshipped like a goddess.

Falling in love with a man who
mother wouldn't even allow me to date her son because I was
darker than a brown paper bag afraid that her grandchildren would
come out darker than black with nappy hair like mine. My heart
sank when she took the brown paper bag and held it against my
skin shaking her head from left to right telling me my skin is
not lighter than a brown paper bag denying my right with her son.
I am even denied entering into churches, fraternities and
nightclubs and as I walk down these lonely streets I see the man
I love with a woman lighter than a brown paper bag poisoned by
this gold digger. But when he was broke these women didn't take
an interest.

Even my half-sister brained washed
into desiring lighter skin. Bleaching her skin to get rid of her
natural dark chocolate skin she desires to trade places with the
light skin woman. I hardly recognise her anymore her skin almost
as light as a white woman and she covers the roots of her hair
with long human hair weave.